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Bar low, ‘Barter 6’ is a banger

I’ve been away from the hip-hop game for a long time. I don’t keep up with much of who’s hot, who’s not anymore; I struggle to listen to the increasingly large amount of new releases that come out out seemingly every week. As a matter of fact, the closest that I’ve gotten to the hip-hop genre of today was closely watching Snoop Dogg and Ludacris relentlessly roasting Justin Bieber on Comedy Central not too long ago.

Needless to say, when I saw news that “The Carter 6” was going to be released, I was confused. As I said above, I’ve been gone from the hip-hop world for a long time, but I did know Lil Wayne struggled to release his latest project, “Tha Carter V.” Tensions had been building between him and Cash Money Records label founder Bryan “Birdman” Williams — a 180-degree turn away from their formerly well-publicized “father-son” relationship. Wayne publicly critiqued Birdman for the continued delays of “Tha Carter V” (rumored to have been finished for months) and called for a formal break from his long-time record label home. Not long after, Birdman’s latest artist and cash cow, Young Thug, formally announced the release of his latest project, “The Carter 6.”

Though Young Thug eventually altered the title to “Barter 6,” the resemblance to Lil Wayne’s songs are uncanny. Heavily auto-tuned and aggressively catchy in the new singing-rap era of hip-hop, Young Thug has put together a project that sticks to that tried-and-true formula. No one is mistaking the content of this compilation for Aristotle philosophizing on a beat — after all, half of the time no one can even understand what Young Thug is even saying. And even after some moments of intense focus and listening, there’s truly nothing, in terms of content, that will make the listener think twice about the project (I would have included some lyrics from any of the songs, but I couldn’t make it past two lines without large amounts of expletives). So at first glance, there’s nothing too substantial about “Barter 6” that would make it worth the 51 minutes one has to dedicate to make it through.

However, the beauty is in the simplicity. If you walk into the experience keeping the bar extremely low in terms of quality, “Barter 6” is actually a really fun album to listen to. Before long, you’re tuning out the lyrics (because again, who knows what Young Thug is even saying), and you’re studying or doing some homework on a Thursday night to Young Thug’s heavily-altered, indiscernible voice and the catchy drums of “Check.” Or the heavily-altered, indiscernible voice and the catchy flow of “Just Might Be.” Or even the heavily-altered, indiscernible voice and the catchy … well, you get it. The songs start to become indistinguishable, but at the end of the day, they’re fun. I guess that’s all that matters.